Today, a week before the 10th anniversary of the disaster in NYC we call 9/11, is a day on which a LABOR of love was revealed in New York. It is a MEMORIAL to help us remember what we can not restore.
I just saw a video of the memorial, “Reflecting Absence” —for me a spiritual experience, meaning awe, hand to my mouth, a gasp, and tears that flowed with the two enormous human-made waterfalls.
The two pools, a colossus to mark the foot prints of what were the twin towers plunge down, earthward, rather than up, heavenward.
Who decided Divinity was always up anyway?
Like the Vietnam Memorial in D.C. the names are engraved along the granite edges of the pools, in no special rank or order. If only life could be as great an equalizer as death.
I didn’t know anyone personally who lost life but I had a client whose new husband was on one of the planes. So I felt along with her.
I got to wondering about absence and presence. We assume that the presence of God is the only good thing, however in the tradition of the Psalms the felt absence of God elicits some of the most beautiful poetry and heart-rending spiritual aching ever created—a memorial to the biblical God who gave humanity freedom and made it sacrosanct, a gift never to be violated by power, even divine power, a Love willing to be powerless, to be experienced as absent.
The presence of God is not unimportant of course. I see it not in intervention but rather in the tears of a nation, in the labors of those who dropped their own lives for a time just to help in heroic ways offering whatever they had to give including prayers, and in the creation of great beauty in this memorial.
Reminds me of the biblical women who stood by Jesus to the end and so many others who sit in prayer or at bedsides keeping God company.
Showing posts with label Memorial Day 2011. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Memorial Day 2011. Show all posts
Monday, September 5, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
2011.05.30 Time to Remember (Memorial Day)
I remember summers on the farm in Ancramdale NY.
On the farm I learned everything I ever needed to know about life, death, love, terror and courage.
I saw a horse birthing a colt, feet first. I saw a surgeon slash open one of a cow’s four stomachs, heard the blood splash onto the concrete floor, smelled the stink of gastric air that rushed out, cringed as the gloved arm of the surgeon plunged in and pulled out a piece of hardware the cow had swallowed. God knew how. The cow ate during the procedure.
I rode my pony bareback into the swimming hole, buried my face in his mane and felt safe as large water rats sluiced by. My friend and I on our ponies herded the cows back to the barn to be milked each evening. One cow was missing. We found her and had to watch her sink to her death in quick mud, the last bellow, the last reach of one nostril snatching at life as it disappeared—while we stood by helpless.
There were rats in the old farmhouse. We stuffed old newspapers into their large holes. Rats once chewed the flesh off a baby. The father a farmhand caught as many rats as he could and burned them alive nose down on a hot stove burner. He had to hear them scream like his baby had before she died.
Even sex. The bull mounted the cow and hopped around while she bellowed—then she resumed eating. My mother told me it was the way they made babies, that she and Daddy did that too, and that it was the most beautiful thing two people could do. There’s only so much a six year old’s imagination can bear.
I learned the freedom of wind in my hair, dirt on my face, and bare feet pounding and toughening on dirt roads. I learned that cornfields whisper and, like Godde, hold all secrets sacred.
Once I watched my father, along with Farmer Kurt and another hand, herd a raging bull onto the back of a truck using pitchforks. It wasn’t enough protection. What if the bull killed my Daddy? I knew what bulls could do. My father was city not country. This wasn’t something he knew about. I saw the fear creep into his eyes. But he stuck it out. He did his brave part. I was proud of him.
What I remember most though was how much I loved him for his answer to my question, “Daddy were you afraid?” He said, “Yes I was, my darling.” Then he hugged me and planted a kiss on my forehead. My Daddy, so brave and so scared all at once. A hero.
Isn’t that what Memorial Day is all about?
On the farm I learned everything I ever needed to know about life, death, love, terror and courage.
I saw a horse birthing a colt, feet first. I saw a surgeon slash open one of a cow’s four stomachs, heard the blood splash onto the concrete floor, smelled the stink of gastric air that rushed out, cringed as the gloved arm of the surgeon plunged in and pulled out a piece of hardware the cow had swallowed. God knew how. The cow ate during the procedure.
I rode my pony bareback into the swimming hole, buried my face in his mane and felt safe as large water rats sluiced by. My friend and I on our ponies herded the cows back to the barn to be milked each evening. One cow was missing. We found her and had to watch her sink to her death in quick mud, the last bellow, the last reach of one nostril snatching at life as it disappeared—while we stood by helpless.
There were rats in the old farmhouse. We stuffed old newspapers into their large holes. Rats once chewed the flesh off a baby. The father a farmhand caught as many rats as he could and burned them alive nose down on a hot stove burner. He had to hear them scream like his baby had before she died.
Even sex. The bull mounted the cow and hopped around while she bellowed—then she resumed eating. My mother told me it was the way they made babies, that she and Daddy did that too, and that it was the most beautiful thing two people could do. There’s only so much a six year old’s imagination can bear.
I learned the freedom of wind in my hair, dirt on my face, and bare feet pounding and toughening on dirt roads. I learned that cornfields whisper and, like Godde, hold all secrets sacred.
Once I watched my father, along with Farmer Kurt and another hand, herd a raging bull onto the back of a truck using pitchforks. It wasn’t enough protection. What if the bull killed my Daddy? I knew what bulls could do. My father was city not country. This wasn’t something he knew about. I saw the fear creep into his eyes. But he stuck it out. He did his brave part. I was proud of him.
What I remember most though was how much I loved him for his answer to my question, “Daddy were you afraid?” He said, “Yes I was, my darling.” Then he hugged me and planted a kiss on my forehead. My Daddy, so brave and so scared all at once. A hero.
Isn’t that what Memorial Day is all about?
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